auditions for conservatoires

The Royal Academy
The Royal College
Trinity Laban
Guildhall School
Royal Welsh College
Royal Conservatoire of Scotland
Royal Northern College

none of these exclude school leavers from their BMus Vocal Studies courses on principle

Which conservatories are best for 18 yr olds/have the most places? And how many are we talking about?

It used to be that the BA was a 3 year course with more academic content & the BMus was 4 years with less academic content but that may not be the case now.

I am also finding the difference between BMus and BA in Music very confusing.

Plenty of students start their conservatoire vocal training at 18-20. What they tend to do is continue formal study for a lot longer than most instrumentalists. I've known singers who are still with their teacher after 7 years plus, all of the postgraduate study part-time, thank goodness
Most of the students on our Opera Course are in their mid-late 20s but most of them start singing training well before 18...

A lot of it is down to tradition really. Just because a degree is called BA it doesn't necessarily have less performance than one that is called BMus.

Rabbit I find the BMus vs BA for Uni courses a bit confusing. Somewhere like Cardiff where they offer both is reasonably clear cut as final recital only offered with BMus, and BA encouraged more if taking joint honours.
But the BMus course at Royal Holloway allows non-music electives from 2nd year.
I believe the BMus course at Leeds has a year abroad that can be at an overseas Conservatoire.
And the BA courses at Nottingham and Southampton can both have a high proportion of performance modules

halfthewaytothemoon (love your username) could you approach it like this when you discuss with your DD: there are going to be a series of "auditions", each of which is a mine performance and which collectively are an opportunity to perform to a special audience.

Certainly she is not going to be successful at all of them and that doesn't matter. She just has to do these little performances just like all the other performances she has done in her life. And then see what comes.

In other words, the result of each individual performance doesn't matter too much.

Audition time is now upon us. DC beside herself with anxiety not sure what to do to help as she is in danger of talking herself out of the running before we even begin.

Any advice on how to be of use would be helpful.

For other contributors we know several singers of went to conservatories at 18 but most went as post grads. It is very dependent on the individual.

Oh, just thought not sure if this will help but the RNCM has links to Opera North, we went to a concert and they announced certain singers who had been at RN who had gone on to have careers with them.
They also sent students there for certain days, concerts, events etc.
The RN have a strong vocal school.

We do get around a bit.

She is a singer. He did enter at 20 but only because he was ill & had to repeat a year of his a levels, them he didn't get in first time round.

Several of his classmates were 18. Some have made a living though performing, one in particular has made several recordings & sings with leading orchestras. Another went into musical theatre. Quite a few teach, one did postgrad & did a couple if years in TIE before training as a teacher.

Quite a mixed bag.

I've been told (but do not know how true this is) that second study isn't really 'a thing' these days. You don't get the amount of time/input that used to be the case. Or so I am told.

In my youth I shared a house for a year with a bunch of Imperial physics undergrads. If DD1 spends as much time practising when she is at college as they spent on the lash she'll be fine!! They did have VERY full days in terms of lectures/classes though.

They certainly take them. How many and how well they then do is an imponderable (although I suppose one could look up the stats). However I won't be because I will see again the minuscule number of people who got places for DD1's first study in the last year for which stats are easily googlable and that will depress me all over again.

Rabbit the compromise for the Imperial & RCM is that you have to be highly able to get in to Imperial for physics and be judged able to devote some time to music plus I understand the students are focusing on performance in a single instrument without the usual second study and add ons.

That's really interesting ... all the ones I knew at Junior Conservatoires were told to go away and do something else first. Thanks for the explanation.

We went to Chetham's open day a few weeks ago, there were lots of first study singers from 16, some can start as young as 14 if their voice is good and other instruments are strong.
DD is 10, loves opera and classical and has an audition for singing as a third instrument until 14, when they will assess for first/second study.

The students we spoke to at the leavers concert in July were all going to conservatoires to study singing, so quite popular at aged 18 from what I can gather.

Classical but not opera - well, not traditional opera. Although one of them did end up at Glyndebourne. The girl I knew who wanted to do opera had to do something else for a few years first (she did an academic music degree). Obviously people more focussed on musicals go to training at 18 (or earlier) but they tend to not go to conservatoires (though some do now I believe, I think there are conservatoire based MT courses...not something we've looked into since voice is DD1's 3rd study and although she will hope to sing while at college that will only be for the purpose of gigging probably, and for fun. Although if she goes into teaching then having voice will obviously be an asset).

Can you say any more about singers who've done well at conservatoire at 18 Rabbit? I would have thought it's an absolute no. I know some really good singers who left uni last year and are still waiting to be ready for conservatoire because voices just don't develop that early. Or maybe I'm thinking of different sorts of singing ...

My DD1 isn't getting help from elsewhere. Sadly. We can't afford it on top of all the instrumental tuition for her and her siblings. I am fairly convinced that she will be extremely disadvantaged compared to most of the people she is competing against when she applies. Some of the private school people we know have FAR more input. Also some of the state school people where music is seen as more of a priority.

I would say though that I know singers who have gone to conservatoire at 18 and done very well.

And thanks for the link! Really useful.

Thank you Moominmammacat for the very sensible thoughts.

DDs teacher doesn't want her to audition this year as he says she isn't ready yet. He wants her to take a gap year to enable her to spend more time working with him, and then apply next year. He thinks it is a "waste" for her to apply for an academic degree in - for example - history. He thinks she should "follow her passion" to be a performer.

I think there are lots and lots of would-be performers, all of whom are very talented and hard working, but many of whom don't have jobs. Professionally, I am similar to an accountant so I find it a bit hard with all this creative energy around me and am really unsure how to advise DD.

I shall investigate external inputs for the composition tasks. I have not too much faith in the teacher, as all three of the compostion pieces have yet to be completed.

bachtrack.cmail2.com/t/ViewEmail/d/10E6B632A849965E/F876C54266DA2F669A8E73400EDACAB4 ... have a look at this to see what music graduates get up to.

I would only go to conservatoire if I thought I had a fighting chance of making it as a performer.
I would never consider sending an 18 year old singer to audition for conservatoire, far too undeveloped ...
Harmony exercises are part of most A level courses ... filling in the parts for, say, a Bach chorale or a Haydn quartet ...
You can generally chose how much performance you do at university or whether you want to weight your degree towards perhaps composition or research
Super-high offers for Durham combined arts
University's perfectly possible for music without A level ... my nephew got four RG offers with Grade 8 theory
Performance aside, everything for A level should be covered in school ... but it often isn't ... and many pupils get help, especially for composition, elsewhere.

Thank you for the reassuance.

What are "harmony exercises" or "examples of harmony and counterpoint"? DD was asked to submit written work including "some examples of harmony and counterpoint". I have no idea what they are talking about. Can anyone enlighten me? Or post a link to an example?

Dh trained at Birmingham Conservatoire which is part of Birmingham City University (UCE). Their degrees are 4 years.

Admission is purely by audition (well you need 2 grade E at A level)

It's all done in school. Including the performance aspect because what they are looking for from A level performance is not, it seems, what they are looking for from grade exams.

It sounds, with all the outside extra support your DD is getting, that she will not be behind A level students but actually probably ahead. So I wouldn't worry.